1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image karaoke device which plays accompaniment music of a song to be sung while displaying the lyrics of the song and a background image behind the display of the lyrics.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there has been known an image karaoke device which reproduces, from a video disk, image, lyric, and music data for each song desired to be sung. Because data for several thousand songs must be stored in each device, an establishment which provides an image karaoke device for its customers must keep an extremely large number of video disks on hand. A special video disk housing case is provided to the image karaoke device for housing several video disks. An autochanger is provided for changing the video disks according to a request by a karaoke user. The space taken up by the autochanger and the special housing case has given rise to a need for a more compact device, especially in establishments that provide karaoke for customers.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,233,438 has proposed a more compact device for solving the above problem, wherein image data is stored separately from song data. A background image formed based on the image data is displayed while the song is played and the lyrics displayed. The image data which becomes the background image is often stored in video disks. Generally two types of image data are stored on each video disk. For example, when one video disk contains two hours of image data, one hour of image data could be devoted to Japanese ballads (i.e., Japanese "enka") and one hour could be devoted to popular songs.
Stated in further detail, a plurality of images, corresponding to either Japanese ballads or popular songs, are stored in approximately four minute segments. Image data for images is retrieved in the order stored. For example, when a user requests two Japanese ballads, then a popular song, a Japanese ballad, and a popular song in that order, first, the first and second sets of image data for Japanese ballads will be retrieved one after the other, then the first set of image data for popular songs, then the third set of image data for Japanese ballads, and finally the second set of image data for popular songs will be retrieved in that order.
However, with the example described above, since one song is about four minutes long, image data sufficient for only 14 to 15 Japanese ballads and the same number of popular songs is provided. Therefore, a person singing frequently will possibly tire of seeing the same background image. Further, the displayed image corresponding to the first portion of song leaves a particularly strong impression. Therefore, when only 14 to 15 image patterns are available for either Japanese ballads or popular songs, users of karaoke will possibly get the impression that the background images are always the same.
In a separate problem, when songs are divided into only two types such as Japanese ballads and popular songs, invariably some background images will be inappropriate for the content or gist of the song being sung. Although Japanese ballads can be handled with a comparatively small number of images, popular songs must include images for a great variety of songs types including animation film songs, children's songs, folk songs, blues, rock and roll, movie theme songs, etc. Also, situations arise when the 14 to 15 image patterns can not cope with situations well, such as when a summer scene appears during a song about winter or when a tranquil scene appears during a up-tempo song.
The images can be divided into further image genre so as to better match the content of each song. However, if, for example, the songs are divided into six genre, only five image patterns can be provided for each genre, giving users of karaoke an even stronger impression of the same images being repeatedly shown.